美語情景對話 第180期:失而復得 Lost and Found

I'm going to talk a little bit about an embarrassing situation. In Japan, I've lost my wallet four times. The first time I lost my wallet I was in a taxi cab going home late at night and my wallet slipped out of my pocket and I didn't notice. The second time I lost my wallet I went to a night club with my friends and I drank too much and I wasn't paying attention and I left my wallet on the counter of the bar. The third time I lost my wallet I was hiking in a Mountain region in Japan and I went into a small convenience store on the way home and I bought an ice-cream and I left my wallet on the counter and forgot about it. The fourth time I lost my wallet I was in Ueno station, a really, really busy station in Tokyo and I left my wallet on the counter at a supermarket, and the most amzing thing is that I still have the same wallet. In each of these instances I got my wallet back. In two of the cases the person at the store called me and I just had to go back to the store and get it. In one instance, the person that ran the convenient store in the mountains mailed me my wallet, and another time I had to go to the police station and pick it up, but I think that says a lot about Japanese people. They're very, very honest and sometimes I think maybe Japan is the only country in the world where you could lose your wallet four times and still get it back.

我要說一件有些尷尬的事情。在日本的時候，我的錢包丟了四次。我第一次弄丟錢包是在出租車上，當時時間非常晚了我坐出租車回家，我的錢包從口袋裏滑了出去，我並沒有注意到。第二次丟錢包是在我和朋友去夜店的時候，我喝了太多酒，沒有意識到我把錢包落在了吧檯上。我第三次丟錢包是在日本山區徒步旅行的時候，我在回家的路上走進一家小便利店買了冰激凌，我把錢包落在櫃檯並完全忘了這件事。第四次是在上野車站，那是東京一個非常非常繁忙的車站，我把錢包落在了超市的櫃檯，最神奇的事情是現在我仍然在用這個錢包。每次這些情況發生後，我都把錢包找了回來。其中有兩次是店員叫住了我，我回到商店找回了錢包。還有一次是經營山區便利店的人把我的錢包寄還給我，另一次是我去警察局找回了錢包，不過我認爲這很能說明日本人的特質。他們非常非常誠實，有時我認爲日本可能是世界上唯一一個即使你的錢包丟了四次也總能找回來的國家。

重點講解：
1. pay attention to
關心；注意；
eg. More than ever before, the food industry is paying attention to young consumers.
食品工業比以往任何時候都更加關注年輕消費者。
eg. Other people walk along the beach at night, so I didn't pay any attention at first.
入夜後還有人在沙灘上散步，起先我並沒注意到。
2. pick up
接載，取走；拿起；
eg. Ridley picked up a pencil and fiddled with it.
裏德利拿起一支鉛筆，不停地在手裏擺弄着。
eg. She went over to her parents' house to pick up some clean clothes.
她去了趟父母家取些乾淨衣服。
eg. We drove to the airport the next morning to pick up Susan.
我們第二天早晨開車去機場接蘇姍。